A strange new life

5.3

One might think I had trouble sleeping the night before an important mission. And well, they would be right. I couldn’t sleep that night. I turned and tossed in bed for a few hours before I gave up on sleeping and went to bake more pastries. The lack of my ultimate weapons, or the new mission wasn’t what kept me awake. It was everything else. I’ve been so focused and worried about Konoha’s Crush that I never stopped to think about what would come next. No, not what would come next, but what would I do next.

There were a lot of things to consider. Going after Orochimaru’s lab was a stroke of luck, at least for me. I had some things I needed to confirm before I could plan my next steps. Had Kabuto already learned the Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu? My assumption was that he only learned that from Orochimaru after Konoha’s Cruch, since before that, Kabuto wasn't following the snake all around. Another assumption was that Orochimaru taught Kabuto that jutsu because he couldn’t use his arms, after they were sealed by the shinigami.

My primary goal then, I decided after taking another batch of cupcakes from the oven, was to learn what Kabuto knew and kill him if possible. Scour anything Orochimaru related for any clues about the seals in my body and the Impure Resurrection Jutsu.

Talking about the snake, at least one of Orochimaru’s eyes – the one I saw after Sasuke burned the disguise in half of the snake’s face in the Forest of Death – was a byakugan. It stood to reason that it was my eye, since I never heard anything else about any other Hyuga going missing or dying. Given how much of a diva the whole clan was, they wouldn’t not make a fuss about such a thing happening.

What happened to that? With Hizashi standing over Orochimaru’s dead body like a lioness reclaiming her stolen cub, I was sure that trying to get anywhere closer wouldn’t end well. Or maybe I was just projecting and people would just let me waltz in and pluck eyes from a dead body.

A shudder ran through me and I almost let a batch of sweets fall. If nature transformation already made me feel icky, the thought of plucking eyes out of bodies and plopping them on my own head made me nauseous. How would that even work? It wasn’t like I was attached to byakugan or anything. Sure, I think it looked cool. White eyes rulz, it was also useful. All around vision? Sign me in. But I never had those eyes. Yes, intellectually I knew they belonged to Hinata, and that I was Hinata. But I never had them, so to speak. I never even thought about it most of the time.

Even so, I was curious to know what happened. Was the Hyuga clan now in possession of a pair of twice orphaned eyes? Would someone tell me anything if I asked? I pushed those thoughts aside. I looked at the baked treasures on every surface of my small kitchen. I looked through the window and noticed the sky brightening. Right, no time to woolgather. I sealed my secret weapons, took a shower, put on a clean outfit, got all my prepared things, left to start my mission.

I met Yamato in front of the Tower at dawn. Despite not being late, I was the last to arrive. Yamato was out of his shinobi uniform, head protector and any other trait that could identify him as a ninja. By his side, a taller boy, with spiky black hair, wearing a grayish blue sweater and jeans. He carried a bag on his back and no other discernible ninja gear. The other ninja, cadaver pale Sai, wore the same style of clothing I remembered from the show: Black sort-of-jacket that left his midriff exposed, black pants, black open toed shoes. The only difference being the lack of a forehead protector. He also had a bag at his back. I wasn’t good at judging people’s age by their face, but Hayase looked closer to nineteen, while Sai looked about a few years older than me.

Anger, or maybe jealousy bubbled inside my gut. I glared at the pale boy. He was another one I never liked from the original show. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. I didn’t know him. I needed to stop judging people like the characters portrayed on the show. And things have changed. Danzo was gone. There was no need to think that Sai was the same emotionless person from the original story.

“Is that the last member of this mission?” An emotionless voice broke my introspection. I looked up, Sai stared at Yamato. “She looks weak. Is she even a chunin? And what are those clothes, wasn’t this an important mission?”

This fucker! Here I was, trying to convince myself to be nice and there he was putting me down. What’s wrong with him?

The other shinobi, Hayase, raised both hands, smiled. “Now, stop it, Sai. We talked about this, you shouldn’t say whatever comes to mind.”

Sai nodded, but didn’t look away. Still looked at me with those emotionless eyes. Then he smiled, a small one, a fake one, one that didn’t reach his eyes. Creepy.

Hayase turned to me. “You’re Hinata, right?” I nodded, still annoyed at Sai. “Nice to meet you,” the older chunin beamed. “I remember you from the first phase, you did get all seven questions right.”

I blinked. What was he on about?

“You don’t remember?” Hayase scratched his head. I shook mine. “I was a plant during the exam so people could copy the correct answers from me. I was also the one who created the questions.”

Really? I don’t remember seeing him at all, but then again, I was distracted with the test, and didn’t pay any attention to the other shinobi in the room. I popped my board out, to a raised eyebrow from Hayase and more stares from Sai. “Those questions were interesting. The cipher one was my favorite.” I wrote. Showed him the board.

Hayase took my idiosyncrasies in stride. “It was, wasn’t it? I took a liking to encryption after my stay in the intelligence department. You have no idea how many other ways to encrypt data they have. On that one question, I used the Hashirama principle…”

Hayase kept on geeking about the questions he created and all the theoretical knowledge involved. I felt fan-girl-chan wake up. This was right up her alley. Was he talking about something chunin related? I never heard about the workings of higher ranked ninja in the village. And with my promotion being out of ordinary, I had no idea what was the normal course of action here. I erased my board, started to write again when Yamato interrupted us.

The man had been silent, watching our banter, but guess it was mission time now. “We’ll have time to discuss other details later. Is everyone ready?”

I looked at my temporary team members, noted again the attire they wore. Took off my forehead protector, my shinobi tool pouches, and stuffed it inside my bag. I was still in goth mode, but again, my normal clothes didn’t really look like a ninja uniform. After one last check, to make sure nothing in me screamed ‘ninja’, I nodded. Sai and Hayase also nodded.

Yamato clapped. “Great. Our mission is a dangerous one, but it is an opportunity we cannot let pass.” Yamato taichou looked at Sai. “Sai, you’ll be responsible for scouting. Hayase, you’ll be in charge of intelligence and analysis. Hinata, I want you to keep an eye for anything that might escape Sai’s perception or try to approach us in disguise. After we leave the village, we’re not ninjas, just traveling companions.”

Sai looked at the group again, then at Yamato. “And what is our mission?”

Yamato nodded, like he expected the question. “We receive information about one of Orochimaru’s hideouts. Our mission is to find the place, infiltrate, and gather all data we can about Orochimaru’s plans, experiments and anything else related to him.”

I saw a flicker of something on Sai’s face.

Hayase took a step back. “Really? Isn’t it dangerous? Why are they sending a bunch of chunin and a genin on this mission?” He looked at me by the end of the question.

Yamato nodded again. The man didn’t seem bothered by Hayase questioning the mission. “Hinata was promoted to chunin by the jounin commander. Due to the attack, the village cannot spare any other shinobi for this mission.”

Hayase tilted his head, looked deep in thought for a moment. “Shouldn’t we stay here and help the village then?”

Yamato shook his head. “The potential intel we might gather is too important. With Orochimaru’s death, we cannot let that information fall on the wrong hands. It could spell disaster if any of the other villages manages to get the info before us.”

“Are the other villages moving?”

I looked at Sai, who just asked that question. What was he talking about?

Yamato sighed. “The situation with Kumogakure is still tense. There have been some skirmishes in the Land of Hot Waters, and given our current situation, it’s expected they will attack again. Maybe even start another war.”

Kumogakure? What were they talking about? I remember hearing during my academy days about increased hostilities, but that was it, just rumors and hearsay. Nothing I heard made it seem the situation was that complicated, or urgent, or even tense, and it was years ago.

Hayase grabbed his hair. “Shit.”

I looked at my board. There was so much I wanted to ask right now. From the looks of things, genin were pretty much excluded from any important information regarding the village inner workings. I had no idea the situation was this bad. It also felt like everything was my fault. I remember some of the rumors, the bad relationship with Kumogakure started because of the so-called Hyuga affair. Turned worse because the whole Kumo delegation was killed, and the Raikage blamed Konoha for it. And now, I failed to save the third, leaving the village in even worse waters.

I saved the whole Uchiha clan, removed the poison that Danzo was, but still things turned sour. In a way, Konoha should be on better standing, but given Yamato’s face and disposition, it looked like the man believed war was inevitable and just around the corner.

I agreed wholeheartedly with Hayase. Shit.